[Avodah] chassidut

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Mar 25 14:19:11 PDT 2020


On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 04:40:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> On 25/3/20 2:31 am, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
>> A rav visiting a high school spoke to the students concerning acceptable
>> approaches to avodat hashem. His major point was that they're all ok as
>> long as they have a gadol who supports the approach. I wondered to the
>> student whether the rav, who identified with a branch of chassidut, felt
>> the irony of making such a statement when chassidut's originator would
>> have failed this test. Thoughts?

> He had plenty of gedolim who supported his approach, both among his
> colleagues in the Tzadikim Nistarim movement, and of course his rebbe,
> Achiyah Hashiloni.

The advice wouldn't apply to actual gedolim. And the Besh"t himself
would qualify. No need to rely on neshamos of the deceased, who may or
may not qualify as "gedolim", if we wanted to play games with the exact
limits of a relative term.

If we didn't limit the advice to being only applicable to non-gedolim,
then derakhim could only exist if we allow them to evolve. In which
case, the Besh"t's founding of Chassidus still qualifies, since the
seeds were there.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha


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